Except it doesn't devalue mining, you still need six stacks of ghost iron ore to make one living steel bar, or six trellium bars to make one living steel bar.
If anything this adds more value, now the mining profession feeds: Blacksmithing, Jewelcrafting, Engineering, and Alchemy.

Fair enough. I changed my mind over the weekend as my ore stacks are selling in minutes for 115+G per stack. I'm happy.

otherwise that's how the economy works, professions need other professions.

And what crafting profession does alchemy rely upon for everything useful it makes? And Which professions are bottlenecked by a material only blacksmiths and engineers can craft?

This isn't some even handed take-and-leave system; alchemy is effectively an unecessary restraint on other professions.

If I were to level another toon, I would do it to play that toon, not have it be my materials bitch.

"Do not look down, my friend. Even in the darkest of times, there is always hope... Hope for a better day, hope for a new dawn... Or just hope for a good breakfast. You start small, then see what you can get." ~ Covetous Shen

it's not a gathering profession I'm dependent on, it's another crafting profession I'm dependent on. That's totally different. A crafting profession that has it's on gathering profession that it in turn needs. This living steel thing not only screws over blacksmiths but jewelcrafters too and just gives alchemists way too much power over two other professions. I don't see leatherworkers needing to make mail armor entirely out of ghost iron bars or enchanters using Kyparite ore to do their enchanting.

At least you're not a LW. They need a Spirit of Harmony to provide the best leg enchants for people. At least someone can hand you a Living Steel and ask you for a belt buckle. LW's have to farm 10 Motes to be able to provide their benefits to others. If you're revered with the Tillers, at least you can "farm" 1 per day, but still. I think Blizzard shafted both BS and LW, this expansion. GC must have a Tailor for his prof, since they only need 1 Imperial Silk which is a joke to farm /sarcasm

This isn't some even handed take-and-leave system; alchemy is effectively an unecessary restraint on other professions.

We're speaking of transmute alchemists here, aren't we (everything else doesn't even gain a profit on Living Steel on most realms anymore, so I'm pretty sure most people are talking about transmute alchemy)? In that case, Alchemy with transmute mastery is there ONLY to feed other professions. What can a transmute alchemist produce? Gems: here to feed JCs. Bars: here to feed BSs.

Don't give me that bullcr*p of "but alchemists can create flasks and pots too". Yes, we can, but only at an extremely minor gain, or even at a loss if we haven't got the right mastery.

There is so much crying in this thread. I have 6 transmute spec alchemists on the same realm. I transmute Living Steel everyday on all toons and guess what I don't farm anything. This is simple to grasp I thought. Look at the price of ore and bars. On my server ghost iron bars are cheaper or the same price as bars. You can transmute a trillium a bar with 10 ghost iron bars so two trillium per stack. The cost of a stack of ghost iron bars is cheaper than one trillium... So I buy enough stacks to guarantee myself 36 trillium bars and then transmute them. You net any extra procs of trillium and save them for the next day. Today i procced 5 extra living steel and procced a boner at the same time . Now the thing that stinks is the cost of mats to price of living steel is only about 100-200 profit on my server at the moment. Also, all of the epic BS armor is selling for 30k plus easily like hotcakes. So they are making 10-15k on each sale. So if you look at the amount of work I have to do as opposed to the BS that buys all the mats for 20k hits a button and sells for 30-35k who is getting the bone. If I don't proc extra I net around 500-1000 gold a day. Maybe I am smarter than the average bear, but I should level a BS...

Basically this.. Seriously people? Its the same system you had in Cata with truegold.
Either A: Make another alt that has alchemy or B: Suck it up, spend the little gold it costs for them on the AH or get an alchemist to xmute it for you. =)

And what crafting profession does alchemy rely upon for everything useful it makes? And Which professions are bottlenecked by a material only blacksmiths and engineers can craft?

This isn't some even handed take-and-leave system; alchemy is effectively an unecessary restraint on other professions.

If I were to level another toon, I would do it to play that toon, not have it be my materials bitch.

Alchemy: requires jewelcrafting and mining to make transmutes
So, we should change it to where alchemists should be able to prospect and mine ore while we're making other changes. Or just fuck em and take away their transmutes altogether.

It's a dynamic economy, I could find more examples of this but what it boils down to is:

You don't understand how the economy works and want it to be simple. It currently is simple to understand but hard to master. Just like no one should be able to spam 1 button and make top dps no one should be able to be in one area of the market and make the most gold. If you want to make gold as fast as me you're going to have to be A: as smart as I am about it and B: work as hard as me. I have, right now, BS/JC/Tailoring/Mining/Alch elixer/Alch trans/Enchanting all maxed out. No I don't have all the end game recipes, but I have the leveling recipes and I am pulling in approximately 10-20k a day, depending on the market/how raiding went last night and a few other variables.

You want to make the gold I make, or more, you work smarter or harder. Don't bitch about the system.

---------- Post added 2012-10-09 at 12:33 PM ----------

Do you guys who are complaining about this ever think of what the consequences would be of you getting your way?

Ok, so, we take the Living steel transmute out of Alchemy and give it to Mining. Hooray, Mining now becomes an almost mandatory profession, or at least much much more valuable, like it was in Lich King. Also, while we're taking the living steel transmute out it doesn't make a lot of sense to leave in the Primal Diamond transmute, let's give that to JCs. But wait, Alch also can take green quality gems and turn them into blue quality gems, doesn't make sense to have that either, give it to JC.
Jc uses mining to feed it, primarily for gems. But our end game trinkets and the new mounts use Living steel, hooray, as a JC/Miner I can now make the mounts and trinkets without putting money into the economy anywhere, I am now the only person who benefits from those farmed goods. That's good right? well, it is a major cause of inflation, since it devalues work on anyone's behalf other than Miners, but it also means less money in the pockets of my customers, who now may not be able to buy as much, so the price goes up and the sell rate slows.

But wait, there's more.

See, now all golden lotuses are filtered towards alchemy (i think inscription might use some, but i hate inscription and am not sure), but if JCs got the gem transmute they would need golden lotuses, which means that Lotus prices would increase. Flask prices would go up at the same time that potion prices absolutely crashed. Why would these two things happen? well the first because now Golden lotuses are being split between more professions than before. The second because all the transmute master alchemists, realizing A: the shortage of Golden Lotuses and B: the worthlessness of Transmute master now that there are no transmutes, will become either elixer or potion masters. More will, at first, become potion masters because of the lack of golden lotuses.

So Alchemy is neutered as a profession, which will have an effect on....Herbalism, why have herbalism but to feed the alchemy market? well there's inscription but there's not nearly enough demand from just inscription to require all the current herbs being farmed. So, herbalists will move to mining, because that's where the money is at. Which will mean? you can figure it out, that's right, Glyph prices and Shoulder enchants and all the other neat things from inscription will go up.

This is just by changing Alchemy transmutes. The entire market would be turned on its head and people's current investments would be radically revalued. You have absolutely no idea how much havoc this would cause on the AH. some prices would go down, some up. Some people would lose tens of thousands of gold and some people would make millions. Eventually it would settle down, but, when the dust clears, there won't be even relative balance between the gold making potential of the professions, as there tends to be now. Alchemy would be completely neutered and only a few players would remain in this niche market. Eventually flasks and potions would become a thing of the past.

In order to have demand spread equally between the professions they have to have such interplay. Not having it was a major cause of imbalance during Wrath.

Think before you whine, because there are consequences to actions. Even if you don't like the way things are it could be worse if it changed.

At least you're not a LW. They need a Spirit of Harmony to provide the best leg enchants for people. At least someone can hand you a Living Steel and ask you for a belt buckle. LW's have to farm 10 Motes to be able to provide their benefits to others. If you're revered with the Tillers, at least you can "farm" 1 per day, but still. I think Blizzard shafted both BS and LW, this expansion. GC must have a Tailor for his prof, since they only need 1 Imperial Silk which is a joke to farm /sarcasm

Lol. Not only do blacksmiths need living steel to craft their stuff, they need spirits as well. Look at the epic patterns. 5 or 8 living steel + 8 spirit of harmony. I am sure blacksmiths would like it if belt buckles just required 1 spirit + bars they can get from mining over requiring a living steel.

And I am sure alchemists would rage if they needed an item that only Engineers could make that had a 1-day cooldown in order to make flasks.

Only if they were stupid...

Read my long post above.

Alchemy is one of the weakest professions among those that can realistically make gold (sorry engineers). Taking away their transmute would completely gut the profession and put WAY too much power in the hands of miners.

It was unbalanced in Wrath with titansteel and it will be unbalanced if they did this now.

I think the main problem with living steel isn't the fact that the economy is reliant on alchemists (even though I think that's a stupid design), but the problem is that living steel is used in so many more things that truegold was. I mean, considering that belt buckles and weapon chains now require the big xmute crafting material of the xpac, the demand for living steel is higher than it ever was for truegold.

Lol. Not only do blacksmiths need living steel to craft their stuff, they need spirits as well. Look at the epic patterns. 5 or 8 living steel + 8 spirit of harmony. I am sure blacksmiths would like it if belt buckles just required 1 spirit + bars they can get from mining over requiring a living steel.

I am a BS/Miner, and I would rather have a guildie/friend transmute me a Living Steel from my mats than have to farm RNG for Motes... Please... :-P All crafting professions require Spirits for craft epics (except Tailoring). My point was if you are trying to make money off you profession, someone can bring you a Living Steel and tip you for it. If you're a LW, you have to farm the Spirit yourself and you can sell that spirit to people wanting it, but there's no guarantee they'll pay what your time farming that Spirit is worth to you.

I am a BS/Miner, and I would rather have a guildie/friend transmute me a Living Steel from my mats than have to farm RNG for Motes... Please... :-P All crafting professions require Spirits for craft epics (except Tailoring). My point was if you are trying to make money off you profession, someone can bring you a Living Steel and tip you for it. If you're a LW, you have to farm the Spirit yourself and you can sell that spirit to people wanting it, but there's no guarantee they'll pay what your time farming that Spirit is worth to you.

Yeah, I have a bigger problem with this. I can't even help my guildies run dungeons (I'm a tank) while gathering Spirits because the drop rate is so low, especially split among 5 people. So instead I'm out in the world gathering trash 90s to aoe. This lasts till infinity. Now I have my 2 BS pieces it's not such a big deal, but it will really slow how fast I get gold.

don't they also make the gems for the metas too? shit, it must be beautiful to be an alch right now. I need to get on that train.

by the way, motes are personal loot, unless you're doing a daily and the mote drops on a mob that counts as a tag by everyone. but yes, even farming motes can suck, you can get 5 in a row, and not see any more for 30 fucking minutes. it's been a pain in the ass to make any money with my professions because I have to farm 6-8 of those things before I can make a damn thing. I've made more gold on my level 85 max enchanter.

so another profession having what another profession needs to make something has been around forever? that's not true, some things have been but never to this extent... and some professions benefit far too much where they probably don't need a damn thing from another, and sure as hell not at over 1k gold in the expense.